Businesses and organizations produce periodic report packages for customers, executives, investors, business partners and others. In most cases, the report packages are to be produced as quickly as possible after the underlying data are available. When multiple reports are produced from automated systems, however, they are produced in sequential order which requires time proportionate to the number of reports, accounts or records used to create the reports. In addition, if reports from multiple electronic data sources are included in a package, they are often compiled manually, requiring additional time.
In addition to periodic reports, multiple users may request multiple reports to be generated on demand through online systems. These multiple requests are also processed in sequential order, requiring time proportionate to the number of requests, reports, accounts or records used to create the reports, delaying the creation of reports for users whose requests were later in the queue.
As apparent from the above deficiencies with conventional systems for producing report packages, a need exists for a system that can distribute the creation of multiple reports across multiple processors, working in parallel, to shorten the time required to produce high volumes of reports or respond to on-demand requests from users. A further need exists for a system that can create reports from multiple electronic data sources, using multiple processors, and automatically combine the resulting reports into a report package.